Wednesday, 5 April 2017

Pearl of the Seas - Ruth Finnegan

Pearl
of the Seas is the second book written by Ruth Finnegan that I have read, the
first being Black Inked Pearl. I wanted to read Pearl of the Seas because I was
interested in how Ms. Finnegan would handle a children’s book. Written as a
prequel to Black Inked Pearl, this book tells the story of two adventurous
children who, along with their sweet and comical dog, sail off in a log that
they have found and built into a boat. They discover a land where the king
bestows them with wisdom in a God-like way and there are numerous lessons to be
learned by anyone reading the book. The story itself is quite a lot of fun and
the characters of Chris, Kate and Holly (the dog), are playful and fun.
However, the reader has to dig deep to find the actual story. It’s buried under
layers of needless words that either don’t make sense or don’t add anything to
the story. For example, in chapter one, page two as read on my ereader, when
Kate splashes Chris with water and runs away, the description is “the splash
lashed dashed bashed him.” For a child reading on their own, all of the
wordiness would make them lose interest rather quickly. If this book is being
read to a child, it would be received better because an adult could make the
words and tone of voice fun and interesting. Eventually though, this would no
longer work because the story is lost. The book is also a little too long for
younger readers to read on their own. There are illustrations but not nearly
enough and they are black and white. A little colour would make them much more
interesting to children.

Ms.
Finnegan has so much talent as a writer and the stories are there if there was
less use of unnecessary nonsensical words. I did read parts of the book to my niece
and shortened it to just the story and she really enjoyed it. I read this on my
ereader and it formatted well. The cover is quite lovely and colourful.